Oakley has to be the pickiest eater ever. He loved baby food and ate everything I offered him. It's been a battle since the day he started eating solid food. I've talked to his pediatrician and he said not to make a big deal about it since Oakley is growing and has no interest in junk food. Oakley drinks so much milk I will not be surprised if he starts mooing one day. He will eat a dozen rolls, and probably has, if they are the frozen Terrell brand rolls that I allow to raise and bake - as long as I don't put something dreadful like butter or jam on them. He also LOVES macaroni and cheese. It must be the Kraft brand that is made in the pan, he has no tolerance for Quick Mac in the microwave. He has a few other things, but those foods do make up the majority of his diet. How completely sad. I have definitely failed this child in the role of dietitian.
At school Oakley is required to eat all of his lunch before he can go out to recess. I decided to take advantage of this situation by putting some fruit in his lunch each day. I thought it was a small victory on the side of nutrition. A couple of weeks ago I discovered this wasn't the case. When Oakley was getting into the car after school and I reminded him we were going to piano lessons, he said, "But I have squished grapes in my pocket." Of course getting a straight answer from Oakley wasn't easy, but when I finally got the whole truth out of him I found out he had been shoving his grapes into his pockets when his teacher wasn't looking so he could enjoy the benefit of recess without having to eat his grapes. As smart as he was to figure out how to get rid of the grapes without actually consuming them, he wasn't smart enough to figure out how to get them out of his pockets and into the garbage can before they were a juicy mess in his pocket. I don't know if he got the idea from watching Napoleon Dynamite put his tator tots in his pocket, but that is one of Oakley's favorite movies.
I discovered today that Oakley has actually made progress on his plan to get rid of his fruit without eating it. He told me during dinner that he has a "whole bunch" of apple slices in the front pocket of his lunch box. Again, after further investigation, I got the whole story. Since the fruit-in-the-pocket plan led to a sticky, mushy mess, he was now putting his fruit in the small front pocket of his lunch box. Sure enough, when I opened up that front pocket - which I obviously never do or I would have discovered Oakley's new fruit disposal spot - a week's worth of apple slices. I wonder how much longer the apples could have been in there before they started to stink?
It is just shocking to me what drastic measures Oakley will go to to avoid eating food he doesn't like. It's not like I'm trying to get him to eat liver and onions or some other dreadful food item - just FRUIT! Are a few grapes or apples slices too much to ask?!?! A small voice in the back of my mind keeps saying it's my Mother's curse being fulfilled. I was an incredibly picky eater as a child and I remember Mom's frustration at trying to prepare a meal that would be approved by everyone. I don't know that it ever happened. Sigh.... How many more curse-fulfillment's do I have to look forward to? Frightening, very frightening to think about.
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